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“Through the awful grace of God.” #Elections2016

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

—Aeschylus (525-426 BCE)

This morning I woke up and looked at the news. A US Presidential candidate had just given a speech in which he called for Muslim immigrants and visitors to the US to face, “…extreme, extreme vetting.”

I started thinking about speeches, and the powerful megaphone of those running for the right to lead the United States. For Donald Trump, that might mean a speech promising to “bomb the shit out of them“.

But my sister reminded me of another speech by another presidential candidate at a time when people also wondered if we could survive the hatred, mistrust, and violence. It remains one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard.

(63 days after Senator Robert Kennedy stood on a flatbed truck to deliver this speech announcing the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King to the people of Indianapolis, he was himself assassinated.)

It was a powerful speech at the time. But resonating against the hatred and rhetoric of today, almost half a century on, it reminds us of the power and hope that can only come from love.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. —Robert F. Kennedy, April 4, 1968

Landmark for Peace Memorial, Indianapolis [Dan Edwards, 1994]

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And it’s even scarier to think that he’s actually just riding the wave of anger and hate. Whether or not that wave sweeps him into the White House, it’s still going to be a significant force and I see no signs that anyone has a clue about how to handle it.

Amazing speech – I became aware of it just recently. Did you know that Indianapolis was one of few US cities where there was no rioting at the death of Dr. King? And that speech was entirely off the cuff – what he really believed – and against the direct orders of his handlers to not do it. A great man and statesman. But those few amongst us who rise to the top by seeing and speaking the Truth are soon killed by those who do not wish the truth known. Whether it was a Kennedy, Socrates, Lincoln, King, Jesus, Gandhi, etc — we kill those speaking the truth.

I don’t buy into the concept that guilt or sin is something that can be passed down or shared. I prefer to believe that the only way I can be responsible for the hate crimes is to fail to remember what people like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy believed and worked for.

I don’t quite get the connection between what I said and the sharing of guilt/sin. Behavior patterns are learned – including racism – and as such promulgate in the same manner as any other learned socialized behavior. There are reinforcements for racism in our society – groups, web sites, writings, lectures, etc – and those who are racist seek out the reinforcement for their beliefs. In that way the behavior is shared and passed down when children are raised in racist environments.

An important reminder. Thanks Barb. I’m going to reblog this. Bobby Kennedy was my hero. Is my hero. He came from so much that he could easily have been a Trump-like character. But he couldn’t have been more different. RIP, Bobby.

As I’ve said before, I’m not sure that Donald Trump is the problem. What’s far FAR scarier to me is that he’s tapping into a deep, strong vein of hate and anger. And that’s something that will have to be addressed, no matter what the election results may be.

He may not be THE problem but he’s a bit part of it, or one of several problems. He recognises that strong vein of hate and anger and deliberately encourages it rather than trying to address people’s fears and look for ways to allay them.
Voters seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place – sorry for the cliche but it says what I mean.

Oh, he’s the visible face of the problem, no doubt. Not only that, he’s cynical enough to recognize it for what it is and ride it to achieve his own goals. I find it shameful that a country as vast and full of incredible people as the United States can’t come up with better choices for our leader.

If they were around today, I wonder how Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy would respond to the messages of hate and intolerance. And even more, I wonder why there don’t seem to be voices like theirs today, when we need those messages more than ever,

Wonderful blog by Barb – glad your re-blog dropped into my inbox, Alison. As someone else said in comments, this doesn’t apply just to the USA. I’ve been appalled by what has been unleashed here in the UK as a consequence of the 23 June referendum.

whenever people comment on the rise of Adolf Hitler, they always add ~ ‘of course, it could never happen here’. Hitler came to power on the back of a defeated nation, suffering from recession, job cuts and the feeling that they had lost their ‘greatness of the past. Does this resonate ( I also think of Farage and UKIP here). Little by little, Goebbels propaganda machine kicked into place, suggesting that one particular group was responsible for it all: the Jews. For Trump, who is a direct philosophical inheritor of Hitler’s demonology, it is the Muslims. For Farage and the far right here, it is ‘Immigrants’. We live in dangerous times. As somebody said: those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to go on making them until they do!

I appreciate you starting off your article with that amazing quote from antiquity. Indeed, may we gain wisdom through the awful grace of God. I first came upon it in William Kent Krueger’s fine book, “An Ordinary Grace” (https://rhfoerger.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/an-ordinary-grace/)
Thanks for your post and connecting the dots to and through Robert Kennedy, etc.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment and for the referral to Krueger’s interesting book, which I wasn’t familiar with. I’ve always loved that bit of poetry for the intriguing concept of an “awful grace”.

Yes. the more I think of odd word couples like “awful grace” – I remember reading long ago – a memoir by Sheldon Van Auken”s – titled “A Severe Mercy.” There is something about this sort of strange word connection that draws me in. Ah… so much for words. May you trade and wield in them well.

A much better message than what he have been bombarded with lately. It was a relief to go away for a week and escape the political situation for a while. I am so disenchanted with a nation that could elevate a dangerous buffoon to within reach of the highest office in the nation and have so many people willing to put a walking screaming id in control of the nuclear codes.